Daily Blog Thingie
Fascinating page of the day can be seen here. It's a wild-eyed conspiracy thing that appears to show the damage done to the Pentagon Sept 11th was far less than a crashing plane would have done.  If you'll recall the original report was that a truck blew up next to the building, and from these pictures, all from military and other official sites, all apparently un-edited, the damage certainly looks a lot more like what a truck would do than a plane. The site doesn't really argue the case, just presents the evidence and it's very interesting to look at it.

Of course the arguments come in with why would the government cover it up, where did the plane go if not into the Pentagon, how did they get the air traffic controllers who tracked the plane from multiple airports to go along with it, etc.  Interesting pictures though.

Another fascinating picture can be seen on this article on CNN. It's a map of Cambodia, made by the Khmer Rouge when they were in power and murdering by the million. And yes, those are all skulls and human bones. That is amazingly creepy and horrible, and I want one with all my blackened little heart.

Funny feature on the Brunching Shuttlecocks, a listing of least-surprising AP news headlines.

Symphony to Feature Foreign Composers

So the back is better. Was able to stay up until 3am last night, working.  Mostly d2 site stuff, but it's just nice to sit upright after the weekend of non-production.

I'm thinking I'll get up a few more stories here today, including a long short story from years ago that I really don't like.  It occurs to me that I should post the old ones that are decently-written, even if I could do 10x better now and aren't real proud of the old ones.  I'm not sure why, I should post them though.  I can certainly add them while recommending against reading them, though that seems a bit bizarre. My hardcore fans (Well, some day in the future when/if I have some.) will demand it!

I've got a massage appointment in a few hours, which should be nice.  Not had a good one in years.  It's a real massage, from a professional masseuse, male.  I've never had a hanky panky style one, from some massage parlor/handjob center, and I don't think I want one.  The whole point in a massage is to get totally relaxed and tension free, and if I were lying there with a boner and thinking "when is she going to do me" that wouldn't exactly be relaxing.

Talking to female friends I often say I'd rather get a good massage than laid, and that's perhaps an exaggeration (it would depend on the massager and the layer) but after all, you can duplicate the end result of sex your self.  You can't duplicate a massage with your own two hands.  So to speak.

Movie fans, "fanboys" as the hardcore and clueless are called, are an amusing lot The passions and fury that they exhibit in discussing movies that aren't even out yet can be amazing.  You'll see lots of "haters", people who clearly want a movie to fail miserably, who would prefer that it suck so their cynicism will be rewarded.  They'd rather have a movie be crappy than enjoyable, just since they get so much glee out of slamming it pre and post release.

While I may be somewhat guilty of this on occasion, that just makes me better able to spot the behavior in others.  Or something.

The Talk Back pages on Ain't it Cool are the worst places for this that I know of.  If you ever do a movie, never read the reader comments on the AICN page about it, unless you really need something to puncture the buoyant lift all the ass-kissers and publicists you have surrounding you are providing. People posting there are bitter, they are petty, they are unforgiving.  They are also very real and honest, though often trying to grandstand just to get some attention.

A brilliant example of this phenomena is the following talk back for the latest Star Wars trailer. 

About the 20th post down by Mickfinn is pretty good, as he talks in typically-semi-literate style about the bitching that goes on.  His writing is far less profane and AOLese than most posts there, so if you think this is bad, don't click the link.

I can remember when we, the fanboys and girls of teh world would get excited about even the crappiest movies. Now, there's nothing but cynicism and bitching... before a movie even comes out. You have nothing to go on except trailers, second-hand reports and the say-so of "gurus" like Harry Knowles. You hated Phantom Menace, folks. Fine. You're entitled to your opinions. But let's not storm Lucasfilm with pitchforks and torches because you feel they've personally insulted you. They're just movies. To make some changes, I propose a manifesto, a set of guidleines for a new fanboy state, one that will raise us above the curent bickering and childish behaviour that has stained fandom everywhere.

1. You can enjoy more than one movie.
2. if you don't like it, don't watch it.
3. They're not out to get you.
4. Make valid arguments. it's not enough to say "this is gonna suck".
5. When it's no longer fun, do something else.
6. get off your ass and do something about it.

The debate goes from hating the trailer, to hating people who hate the trailer, to hating the very air that sustains us all.  Nothing is safe from hate on AICN posts.

That being said, the trailer for the movie is pretty mediocre, IMHO.  Looks fake all the time, everything like a non-grungy Blade Runner.  Disney space port.  They could do better with some actual models and mixing in special effects, rather than all fakery.  The high crowd shots in LotR were brilliant since they had models and CGI in together.  Plus it was very gritty, grainy, dirty, etc.  Seemed so real.

A post by ranter sums up most of my feelings about the trailer.

Those guys had an idea of what a room looks like that people actually live in. It has personal effects and weathered, used objects. Everything was both aesthetic and purposeful. There is darkness and light, not freaking flourescent studio lighting everywhere! People are 100% correct in complaining about this trailer. I *will* let the movie speak for itself once I see it, but speaking does not seem to be its strong point. The dialogue is awful awful shit. They hurt my ears to hear them in any context. How is it possible that someone let these things slip through.

Ewan McGregor could fart and it would sound better than that drivel he was made to say. Christ, even Ed Wood would have re-recorded some of those lines. TPM was too bright and plastic to be Star Wars. This one seems to be more of the same. Using CGI is fine for this purpose, but the problem lies in the design. Everything is just too grandiose, too bright, and too fake looking. The CGI is wonderfully done, but it just doesn't fit.

Also, what is this arena bullshit that George keeps pulling on us? Why do we have to be subjected to large Roger-Rabbit-y sequences of laughing, jeering, honking animated aliens in arena seating?!?!?! That's terrible. We had it with the pod races and now we apparently have some overdone combination of the pod races and gladiator with Natalie Portman playing the tied-up damsel in distress. UGH. Finally: "Excuse me...M'lady" is such unimaginative writing, it just might cause me to die right here. I might just die the writing is so bad.

The whole concept of bitching so much about a movie before it even exists is an interesting one, and I don't know if 10 or 20 years ago everyone was all bubbly and hoping for every movie to be great.  I suspect there was less cynicism in general then, and of course no Internet to provide us with total information overkill, and give everyone a forum to see the bitching of others.  I see very few movies, but I enjoy reading about them, reviews, trailers, and seeing how much money they make.  That's far more interesting to me than actually sitting through 2 hours of a film, in most cases.  And I'll admit to loving bad reviews.  When I click Ebert's site or look at reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, I like to read the pans first. More entertaining, unless it's a movie I really want to see (which happens about once a year) in which case I like to read the good reviews to encourage myself.

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